How to End a Prayer

Sarah decided this evening that she wanted to pray before going to sleep.  So we did.  I asked her what we say to end a prayer since I know she knows to say Amen.  She looked at me and said, with confidence, "God-men."

The Usual Craziness

Summer is moving along.  It's hard to believe that August will be here soon.  We've been up to nothing too special:  

    

Dressing up as pirates - saying AAAARRR with Sarah reminding me that pirates don't say cheese mommy but also making sure that I know that Captain Sarah is a nice pirate.

Just sitting around.  If you put yourself on the ground at our house, Will will sit on you guaranteed.  Just watch out when he decides to bounce.

Hungry Hippos - Both kids are now obsessed.

And reading books - Will actually sits still for a few.  

He seems to like Richard Scarry but his favorite is his 5 Shiny Stars book which plays Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when you turn the last page.

Sarah loves her Pinkalicious book and now quotes it sometimes.  She used the line "It's not the worst thing that could happen" on Daddy a few nights ago when he pretended to fall off the bed while playing.  We couldn't stop laughing and she had to remind me where she got that saying from.  Our favorite from the book is "You get what you get and you don't get upset."  It is our new mantra.  Sarah knows it well now and, because it's from Pinkalicious, accepts it.  As a parent, I LOVE IT!!  It's perfect for a 3 1/2 year old who has a problem accepting NO as an answer and hates not getting her way.

Coming soon...  Will dancing.  

Chopped!

I cut my hair pretty short last week and Sarah and Will went with me to the appointment.  Sarah decided immediately that she wanted her hair to be short like Mommy's.  How flattering!  I asked her a million times if she was sure and reminded her that this meant no pony tails or buns.  She was very sure and so we did it yesterday.  As you can see from the picture, it's a good 3 inches shorter and we all LOVE it.  Sarah just loves the clips and sparkles they put in her hair after the cut.  I love it because she doesn't look as much like a ragamuffin now. 

I love Shutterfly

So.... I called Shutterfly customer service today to see if the brag book I ordered for my mom was returned to them due to my complete mis-type of my mom's address (her street address, my city, state and zip!).  It had not been returned to sender so I figured I would just have to pay for another one to be sent.  But no!  The lovely lady I was talking to offered me the book for free and I just have to pay the $3 shipping again.  Hooray!  I think she was a bit taken aback by my excitement and gratitude, after all this was completely my mistake. 

What a nice way to start the day, except for the ants.  Ants (black, fire, you name it) have created several large ant hills under our bougainvillea and are now all over the side of our yard.  Of course, it's the side that has the play set in it.  It seemed ant free around the play set but I got bitten several times once I walked a few feet away.  Needless to say, we played out front instead for a bit.

Other than that, we have had a nice week so far with a lot of swimming in Aunt SuSu's pool with G.  The kids have really loved that.  I went out with my girlfriends last night and we had a great time and ate delicious food.  Andy was in Orlando for all of 36 hours Tue and Wed.  I think he spent more time in the air traveling than at the office he was visiting for work.  Will actually came up to me in the kitchen first thing this morning, grabbed me and said, very clearly "EAT".  Andy and I can't wait until he can communicate better so he'll stop getting frustrated and we'll just have happy Will around.  So, all is well in the Klemmer household for now.

Bowling on the 5th of July

Happy 5th of July!

Today we went bowling.  Sarah "bowled" a year ago but I think that mostly consisted of her wandering around us while we bowled.  This time, she had her own shoes!  She really enjoyed it.  The bowling alley was almost empty at 9:30am when we went and the bumpers were up for her.   I must admit that I've never seen a bowling ball move sooooooooo slow but she didn't care at all.  She decided that you roll the ball, do a dance, your family says Good Job! and then you watch the pins fall down.  Mommy also had a great time.  I bowled my best game ever - a 169!  I then proved that a lot of that was luck.  My 2nd game was terrible.

Will is working on his language skills.  He talks A LOT but we can't understand most of it.  He started pointing and saying Dat? today. I think that's his equivalent of What's that? but I'm not sure.  He is becoming very much a Mama's boy and gets upset when I leave. 

It's flattering and annoying all at the same time.  Today though I went to run a quick errand and decided to take 1 child with me.  Sarah declined my offer saying "That sounds interesting Mommy but I want to stay with Daddy because I love him."  Will, on the other hand, was on his feet in half a second when I said Mommy's going bye bye in the car.  I had to post this picture of Will.   I call it "Here's what I think of your doll Sarah!"  Luckily she never noticed him sitting on the doll.

Our 4th of July was one of the most low key ones we've had.  

We spend the middle of the day at Aunt SuSu and Uncle Dave's house.  They fed us hot dogs and we all swam in the pool.  It was wonderful. Andy bought Sarah some water wings which I have been somewhat against because supposedly they promote a feeling of safety 

in the pool and don't help too much with the swimming.  After watching Sarah for over an hour having a ball in the pool, I love them.  She will learn to swim but for now, these are fine.  Anything that gets her in the water and yelling at Daddy to squirt Uncle Dave is great.

The rest of our day was spent napping and just resting.  Sarah and I read a wonderful book called Happy Birthday America! The story is heartwarming and the pictures are gorgeous.  We also read a book about how fireworks are made.  She was much more interested than I thought she would be and actually requested to see the book this morning.  The book was too advanced for her but I just read the interesting parts that I thought she would enjoy.  The only fireworks I actually saw were out our front window somewhere north of us around 9pm and the many shows on TV.  My brother, on the other hand, called us that evening to let us know that he, my sister-in-law, my niece and my parents were on the Mall in DC waiting for the concert to begin in the pouring rain!  They even sent some pictures.  I'm sure the music and fireworks were well worth the rain.

We are all finally through the illness that swept through the house.  Andy is the last one and still just getting over it.  It hit us both recently mostly just as extreme exhaustion and upset stomach.  Mixed with the heat, the past few days have been terrible - 2 adults with horrible headaches just wanting to nap and 2 kids with boundless energy just wanting to jump and play.

We had another big milestone on July 3rd - Sarah's first movie!  On the recommendation of some friends and just the need to beat the heat.  Andy and I dropped Will off with G and took Sarah to see Kung Fu Panda.  I thought for sure that she would only sit still in a theater for a princess type movie but she really wanted to go see this.  I think it was mostly because her good friend Jackson saw it in the theater and he liked it. (Thank you Jackson!).  The first 10 minutes in the theater after the lights went down were well worth the entire trip.  Her eyes were so big and she was eating popcorn and Junior Mints and had her own seat.  She was sooooooo excited.  This all changed after she dropped the top to her water bottle which made her a bit nervous.  Guess she didn't want to spill. And then the movie got a little scary for her.  So.... she spent a good 2/3rds of the movie in my lap.  It wasn't too bad and she's excited to see another movie.  She's already decided that it will be Sleeping Beauty.  We didn't feel like going into detail at the time why that probably won't be happening.

Last week we spent our time running through the sprinklers and taking an early morning trip to the zoo which wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  It wiped me out for the day and then some but the kids were really good and enjoyed themselves.  I have to say that the best thing we purchased last year was the fan/spray bottle.  Sarah thinks it's a toy and loves it.  It's great for the heat.  

And that's the end of this long rambling blog.

Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!

(In an additional note, Sarah just asked when she could get up to see boom booms.  She's in bed right now.  She wants to make boom booms when she gets lots bigger.  I have promised that we can watch boom booms in the morning and read our book on them.  She knows that boom booms are fireworks but Andy and I have never corrected her on this one.  We just love that she still calls them boom booms just like she did the first time she saw them.  It's just too cute!)